Very Vout (with Bounceroo)

I've archived about fifteen more pieces which brings me to 114.

One of the pieces I archived is the song, "Cement Mixer (Put-ti, Put-ti)", and it has the most bizarre tempo marking.

Very Vout (with Bounceroo)

I watched a video about him, and I can easily see where the Bounceroo comes from. Slim Gaillard is a whimisical sort of piano player, and it makes sense that he would have fun with every aspect of the music, even in the more mundane elements of transcription. And frankly, the beat that piece has is not just bouncy, it's bounceroo-y, though I'm hard pressed to describe what that means totally. I know what it feels like, though!

But what on earth does Vout mean?

Edit: Further research has revealed to me that vout is Slim's form of jive. I can't fully wrap my head around it, so I'll let this website explain it for me.

Still... I guess my question still remains valid. What is a vout tempo?

The Art of Hap Hadley

Amazing! I have sheet music with art done by "Hap" Hadley!

Archive # 101

I amazed because I was under the impression that he primarily did artwork for old silent movies. Unfortunately, that's about all I know about him. I should say, however, that doing a google image search of him will give you a pretty good idea of what he's done.

At first, I was surprised by the lack of color. But, after some thought, I realized that all sheet music is pretty lacking in the color department. Color, attracted the consumer, for sure, but it was also pretty expensive, therefore, you wanted your lithography to have as few layers as possible but still entice the potential buyer.

In any case, I'm incredibly pleased with the find, and I'm in love with the artistic styling of the cover.

On an only semi-related note, the publisher, Harms Incorporated, comes up in my archive only once, with a black and white Spanish piece called "Jalousie". I assume that it wasn't a big name publisher, so I wonder how it got Mr. Hadley. Also, as most publishers have gone, Harms is now apart of Alfred. It's amazing how many companies that place has absorbed.

In which I Am Exceedingly Stupid

Sometimes, I really just don't know what's wrong with me. Why was I subjecting my sheet music to the bright light of a scanner? Apparently, having friends who studied archival, library sciences, and anthropology, and listening to them rant about proper storage techniques, I didn't feel the need to actually practice what they preached, even though I agreed with them.

Stupid me.

Why not just use my digital camera without a flash? It looks just fine, and is legible, which is the part that matters most.

Just look how nicely Alexander's Ragtime Band turned out:

The color is even more true than my scanner. All those wasted hours! I shall never let myself live it down.

Listen: Signs of Spring

I recorded this forever ago, but didn't put it up owing to the fact I seemed to want to ramble on about a million other topics. In any case, this is a very easy song that is written in a huge font, so I imagine it's meant for a beginner. It's a very sweet song, all 43 seconds of it, but the dynamics are a bit counterintuitive. I was tempted to record how I think the dynamics should go, and how they are written, but in the end I decided to let what is written prevail over my hubris.

98 Archived. Random Notes.

As you may have inferred from the title, I have now archived 98 pieces.

After seeing a post on another blog about early American patriotic music, I've decided to dedicate a post to the ones in my stack. I'm a bit late doing it for any special date, since Veteran's Day has passed, but I guess I could say my posts will be in preparation for the anniversary for Pearl Harbor and the Battle of the Bulge next month. Yes... that TOTALLY makes sense...

Anyway, this is my favorite cover from my recent archival efforts:

Archive # 87

I've been avoiding foxtrots up until this point simply because I've never played one before, and I'm a sucker for waltzes. I think it's time to man up*...

*After I finish learning to play the waltz, "On the Shores of Italy" of course.

Adverts

Almost every piece of sheet music has an ad of some sort. This is by far my favorite.

Just Arrived!! Get them NOW!

A Zepp-Load of Zippy Uke Ditties brought in by the zephyrs of demand. The Funniest and Most Unique Uke Pblications ever offered the American Ukeist. From the House that gave you "HANK'S EUKADIDLES", "WENDELL HALL'S UKE-SONG and others. Expertly Arranged Books, employing the Popular and Simple System of Diagrammatic Ukulele Chords.

This ad is my favorite for a few reasons:

1. It has an AWESOME design.

2. It keeps saying uke, which I assume is prounounced "yook". However, uke (pronounced oo-kei) in Japanese is the opposite of seme (pronounced sei-mei). Those terms apply to those who are top and bottom in a male/male relationship (it comes from the names for the dominant and submissive positions in judo). So... that sort of makes me laugh.

3. There are grammatical errors, one of which is a forgotten closing apostrophe. Another is that there is an oddly conspicuous sentence fragment. Also, there are so many random capitalizations it would confuse a German. There appears to be no rhyme or reason for it what is capitalized. No matter how I try to rationalize a pattern, nothing really makes sense.

4. The word "Eukadidles" IS. BRILLIANT.

5. All of the Z-words. Zepp-load, zippy, zephyr. You guessed it, this was published in 1924, the heyday of civilian zeppelinry, and about twelve years before the infamous Hindenburg disaster. It's a bit odd to think of a time when zeppelins were cool, instead of death-traps.

Forgetting its Roots

One of my favorite things to do is the read the names on my sheet music.

Some are good ol' fashion American names, though I'd be hard pressed to tell you why I think they are. The rest... well, they are far more fascinating.

I was searching for renditions of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair by the parlor king, S.C Foster, and on a youtube video the comments were fighting about what nationality the song could best be described by. Irish? American? Irish-American?

Does it matter?

Well, the names on my music say most definitely not.

I wonder when surnames became such a drab affair. Things I that I know. That I don't think odd. Wood. Affleck. Smith. Names whose orthography make sense in a way I can't explain.

Piantadosi - Italian.

Friml- German.

Boguslawski - Polish.

Di Capua - Italian.

Verhey - Dutch, possibly German or Austrian.

I get uncomfortable when people tell me that I "live in America" and "should speak English", and this is largely because this is America... and there is no national language. But also, this is because of the names. My own family tree is populated with Grosts, Albrechts, Hoppes and Schmidts, and it was only until very recently that the German speakers had stopped speaking German. My dad tells me that it started in WWI. Wisconsin, due to its high German population, had always had a strong connection to the Fatherland. After WWI, it broke down a little. WWII killed it. According to him, there were German newspapers as he was growing up, as well as German church services.

Would you find that today in Wisconsin? Not since I've been alive.

Sometimes, I feel like America is in too big a hurry to forget its roots.

I suppose that's why I started this project.

So, then, what is Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair? It's American, of which the Irish play a huge part, of which all of the immigrants play huge part.

A Composer by Any Other Name Is Still Just as Forgotten

This blog is about the following piece:

It's amazing how little a name means as little as fifty years in the future. Jack Glogau. Al Piantadosi. Who they are are is just names now, attached to forgotten pieces of sheet music. For Dietrich and Wright, faces and surnames, and not enough information to know to which face the surname belongs.

I suppose this hit home when the only information I could find on Jack Glogau was a paragraph telling me about how no one knows anything about him. It was a bizarre feeling. A feeling that I suppose I would best characterize as ironic, although not quite.

For something as old as this sheet music, it shouldn't be surprising that the internet is, in fact, my least useful resource. Books written before the advent of the web, and old newspaper articles are where I find most of my information. I was surprised to find the above link via search engines, when there are composers like Harry Von Tilzer with very little more out there.

As for the other, Al Piantadosi, there is a brief paragraph in my history books. The gist: A publisher, composer, and a pianist. A list of songs. Fini.

When these men wrote, I wonder if they thought it was to make their names last forever. Was it for love of music, or fame? Or the combination of the two? There names now, are just printed letters on tattered covers of music remembered by a dying generation.

So, I must rather depressingly ask, what good is a name, when it is just a name?

The Fairy Godmother Waltz Redesign

As I said I would, I redesigned The Fairy Godmother Waltz (and misspelled the composers name while I was at it too!).

Would this ever get printed in those days? No... probably not. Too many colors, and the style is nowhere near how they used to draw. This is not to say lithography would be incapable of handling the colors, just that it would be costly to do so. When I look at my sheet music, I would say that the average number of layers is about three (which I think led to some truly atrocious choices in color).

Sigh. I had such high hopes to do art nouveau, but as per usual, I did my own personal style again.

Oh, and on a more personal note. If I had a fairy godmother, I would totally want her to look like that. She looks rockin'.

The Fairy Godmother Waltz

This was a quick piece to learn, and pretty fun to play. Only problem is I kept wanting to play it faster than a typical waltz! That's why I try not to learn pieces too well. The better I know them, the more out of whack my internal metronome goes.

Records Killed The Sheet Music Star

In the days of Tin Pan Alley, the song was more important the performer. While it is true that the sheet music features a performer on the cover in order to encourage sales, it wasn't necessarily the singer that sold it. It was more like this: if the song was good, a famous singer would sing it. Consumer's Conclusion: it must be awesome song!

Archive #16 (1915)and #13 (1912) demonstrating the prominence of performers on old sheet music

That's the logic anyway. It certainly goes to show why so many songs, such as Irving Berlin's Blue Skies, for example, have so many different well known singers singing it as a part of their catalogue (Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, to name a few). These days, covers of songs are abundant (the fact we call them covers now, whereas in the old days the idea didn't warrant a term is in itself an interesting topic), but they rarely are a defining feature of the band. It's usually a homage to music that the singer/performers love.

According to the book, Tin Pan Alley, this was because of Elvis. You know how video killed the radio star? Well, Elvis' gyrating hips killed the sheet music company. Well, not exactly. The availability of albums for the public to get their hands on made it so you didn't have to listen to your grandma's warbling rendition anymore. You could just listen to Elvis.

It makes me wonder about the way things are nowadays. My friend Zack and I are in a long-distance band (we send bits of songs to each other via email) and we create unique covers as part of our repertoire. And it isn't just us. Well, the long-distance thing is probably just us, but making covers isn't. The internet is full of covers. I wonder, then, if the power of the song is overtaking the power of performance now that means to record music is more accessible.

We are definitely entering a new age of music.

Useless Facts 1st Edition Tempo di Valse

I'm currently learning "On The Shores of Italy", which is a beautiful song that I can't wait to upload. Unfortunately, work, even if it's waiting tables, must come first! In any case, while looking it over for the sightread, I got curious about what the tempo means, which leads to me to present the first edition of The Appleton Sound's Useless Facts!

Tempo di Valse --

What I know: This is a common waltz tempo, although it doesn't actually indicate what metronomic beat is which is a bit frustrating. It literally translates as "tempo of a waltz". What that means is that the conductor should conduct the piece in 2. Seeing as how this song is in 3/4, that means each measure constitutes a beat as opposed to three beats a measure. Knowing this is rather useless for this piece, seeing as there is, unfortunately, no orchestra and it is just me, I feel like I can measure out a song however I want in order to keep the beat, though my internal metronome does do it in two as Tempo di Valse asks. I just sort of wish I had a BPM just to make sure I'm not taking it too fast or too slow.

Useless things I didn't know (but probably should have...): Tempo di Valse isn't actually Italian. Well, it sort of is... The di alone siginifies that me, but only because French is de la, du, and des. I don't actually know Spanish or Portugeuse to know if that's the case in those languages though I'm almost positive that Spanish is exclusively de. In any case, directions in music are usually written in Italian. So where is the useless fact? Well, the world valse is supposed to mean waltz, but it's spelled v-a-l-z-e in Italian. Valse, or valser is the French spelling.

So, that, my friends, is my useless fact. For some reason, Tempo di Valse spells valze wrong.

The more you know...

The Fairy Godmother Waltz

I like this song.. mostly because it gets my imagination going on about what sort of fairy godmother the composer was trying to conjure.

However, I wish that the cover was a little more inspiring!

Archive # 61

From what I can tell by looking at this, they would print the same cover for several pieces that have a theme. The theme could be a composer, era, or idea (like flowers, or waltzes for example), and whatever piece was that was contained within was underlined on the cover with either a pen or a color pencil. On the cover above, you can see the blue mark six songs down. I'm not sure if the sending or receiving company did this, but whoever had the job to do that probably was bored out of their mind! Hopefully, as I research more I will figure it who did the marking!

I think I may design a cover for this though, just for the fun of it. And... I think I may base it off of my costume for Halloween this year.

The outfit is a bit modern, yes, but I'm thinking it would be fun to make it look a bit art-nouvelle-y. The only thing is that most sheet music looks like it used multi-layered lithography, and I'm not sure how I want to address that. Limiting my color pallet, and using thick lines seems to be the obvious answer. But... but... but! I like lots of bright colors! What shall I do?

We'll just have to see. I have no doubt that the cover will look nothing like anything from the era of Tin Pan Alley, but I think it will be fun to do anyway.

87 Pieces, and Creepy Men

I've now archived 87 pieces! Unfortunately, that means I have to buy some more plastic sleeves, which are expensive because of the sheet music's unusual size.

So far, I've learned to play a lot of them. It seems likely that I'll record those very soon.

Also, on a more random note, I think this piece wins the award for creepiest man so far:

Archive #78

The bird/girls get extra points for creepy.

Tin Pan Alley Books

I just got back from Fort Collins! What does that have to do this with blog? Oh, well, because I picked up some books on Tin Pan Alley while I was there! I'm so glad that I database the publisher's addresses and names, because they are starting to paint a very clear picture of how Tin Pan Alley moved streets, and what publishers merged with other publishers when.

As I've started archiving, I've slowly started to learn some things that I had never known about. One of these things is Tin Pan Alley, which is where most of sheet music publishers wrote their music, and tried to plug it before there rather sudden collapse in the nineteen-fifties. So, basically, every piece of music I own before 1950 is a piece of Tin Pan Alley history, and it's very exciting!

If you're at all interested, you should pick up the appropriately titled Tin Pan Alley, by David A Jasen. From what I can tell, Jasen is pretty well one of the authorities on this era of music. It's pretty easy to get ahold of for fairly cheap, so check it out!

Signs of Spring.. in the Winter?

I absolutely love this cover! LOVE IT! Even if there is a coloring error underneath his/her chin. Still, I think I may frame this piece.

Archive # 74

I don't really know where this piece comes from. Two things lead me to believe it's not my great-grandmother's: 1.) Her name is not written on it and 2.) It's way too easy to play! Thus, I must surmise that she never played it. That being said, I do know that someone did. Firstly, it's tattered from use. Secondly, when you look inside there are F-sharps pencilled in all over the place which tells me that whoever played it was a beginner who was still struggling with key signatures that weren't C Major. In this case, G Major was throwing them for a loop!

Of course, I talk as if that still doesn't happen to me. I'll admit that I tend to play whatever key I want a song to be in... that is, before begrudgingly relenting and submitting to what is written after a long atonal series of notes that in no way resemble a melody.

In any case, I think it's safe to say that my great-grandmother picked this up with all the other freebies at the dime store she worked at.

On a side note, the Theodore Presser Company, which had owned the copyrights to this song, still exists! Amazing that they have survived! Perhaps its because their base was in Philadelphia and not New York, where there was more competition. Of course, to confirm this thought, I checked my database and find that there are quite a few companies based in Philadelphia. Eclipse, and Hatcher at the very least, though I haven't checked to see how those companies have done towards the end of the century.

I would love to write more boring things about this song, but I've got to go unload hay. Fun, seeing as I'm incredibly allergic to it! Hay fever. Talk about a sign of spring, eh?

An Exercise in Copyright Law

I don't mean to be crude at all when I say that copyright law is an absolute and utter b*tch, but it is. It really is. It's easy enough for my pieces which are before 1923, since all of those copyrights are have entered the public domain. However, for the ones between 1923-1950, I have to make sure that their copyright wasn't renewed in the 28 years after their publication. If it has been, it means there is a 95 year wait period before it enters the public domain. Needless to say, it's not been an easy task.

Take for instance, this lovely song:

I look, and I look, and I cannot find a secondary publication of it which may mean that it wasn't renewed. All copies I am aware of are published in 1929 for the movie, The Pagan. The question, however, remains, does that mean its copyright hasn't been renewed? I'm not entirely sure, seeing as there was a movie made in 1950 (starring the esteemed queen of the waves, Esther Williams) that features the song, and is appropriately called Pagan Love Song. It is all so confusing!

I've also found out that the publisher, Robbins Music Corporation, is owned now by ubiquitous Alfred Publishing Company (or Belwin) which makes me wonder how many of its copyrights were transferred to APC. Logically, I would have to suppose a lot of that would depend on when APC acquired the company. I guess it's time to start seriously researching.

My Buddy

Watch my fingers wiggle and perform "My Buddy", and wish you never heard my awful voice! Now on to scan some more covers and learn about how sheet music was printed in the early 1900s!

I'm aware I played this a little fast, but, really, it's within in the range of the tempo given on the sheet music, and I think it's incredibly boring to play slower... ah, my old habits of adolescence returns.

Covers for "My Buddy"

The sheet music of "My Buddy" has two covers, so far as I'm aware. One extols its virtues by proclaiming that it was sung by Al Jolson (famous to us people nowadays as the Jazz Singer), and the other that of Mary Katherine Campbell (two-time winner of Miss America).

Image from (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ctod/536375071/)

archive # 43

These covers naturally raise a question of gender. Who is singing to who? Man to woman? Man to man? Woman to woman? Woman to man? The covers are so markedly different, it's hard to say. I will discuss it, however, in the next post, but I ask you to consider the covers, the singers, and the lyrics. What do you think?

(Verse 1)

Life is a book that we study,

some of its leaves bring a sigh.

There it was written, my buddy,

that we should part, you and I.

(Chorus)

Nights are long since you went away.

I think about you all through the day.

My buddy, no buddy, quite so true.

Miss your voice, and touch of your hand.

I long to know that you understand.

My buddy, your buddy misses you.

(Verse 2)

Buddies through all of the gay days,

buddies then something went wrong.

I go alone through the gray days,

missing your smile and your song.

Pronunciation Guide

I thought people may be confused about how to pronounce the lyricist of "My Buddy", Gus Kahn's, name, so I made a quick how to video.

It's easy once you get the hang of it, eh?

"My Buddy" Sight-reading

The first song I've decided to play is "My Buddy" (lyrics: Gus Kahn | music: Walter Donaldson).

Archive # 43

In any case, the following video is me sight-reading/singing "My Buddy", and not doing a terribly good job of it. There are also little tidbits added in for the musical inclined.I'm not sure if I'm going to do this every time for a song, but it's kind of fun to see how badly I do the first time going through it :)

75 Pieces Archived

I have officially scanned in seventy-five pieces of music!

How many have I learned to play? About... four...

Still, progress is progress.

Here are some covers that I particularly like:

Archive# 53

Archive # 49

Archive # 33

The First Post

I’ll start from the beginning, shall I?

I was born in 1985, and I suppose then I probably had some sort of knack for music. Or at least, I’d like to think so. Perhaps I would cry with perfect intonation… or pump my small, chubby fists to Pink Floyd. Unlikely, really. My intonation is questionable, at best, and it took me several years of constant metronome use to learn how to stay on beat.

So where to start? As with everything, there are a million beginnings, some so far away they are taken for granted, as if they were always there, mired in the non-linear.

I shall start in two places. The death of my grandmother, and my love of music. My mother says I inherit all my talent from my grandmother, which I have to believe seeing my father’s side of the family is completely devoid of anything musical except a somewhat questionable respect for the strangest singers*.

My grandmother died before I was born. When I was sixteen, I inherited her sheet music, which she inherited from her mother. At the time, I was into playing Beethoven, and I cursed the fact that, while I loved Chopin, I had difficulty playing his music due to their flat-ridden key signatures, and counterintuitive rhythms. Then, I was listening The Smashing Pumpkins on repeat, and admiring the orchestrations of Elliott Goldenthal in Interview with a Vampire. I had no interest in old music. But if I must be frank, the truth was that I liked having it. It gave me status.

How is that for beginnings?

After about eight or nine years, I found my sheet music and started going through it. Then, I was hit with a bit of inspiration.

So, this is the Appleton Sound Project. I’m not entirely sure what it is yet, but I know it has to do with the archival of all my sheet music, and learning the history of people that are no longer remembered. It is my research project, and my chance to connect with music I had never heard before.

Welcome.

* My dad, rather inexplicably, likes Yes and Rush.